| “Is that the best you can do?” The voice was petulant. The scolding tone sounded like my mother when I’d forgotten to take out the trash.Kerry’s abrupt halt pitched me over the uprooted tombstone and I ate dirt. We’d snuck into the cemetery around midnight with plans to topple at least five of the massive headstones. We were working on our second when that question came wafting out of the air.
“Kerry, you idiot. What are you doing?” Spitting black earth, I yelled at him, well, I didn’t actually yell. I sort of whispered real loud. “It wasn’t me. Swear! ”Kerry was paralyzed to the spot. Creeping around in old cemeteries can unnerve a guy, and he relished the times he’d made me jump. But now, he was scared or at least pretending to be. Brushing the earth from my hands, I heaved myself upright. “Kerry, one of these days.” My words choked somewhere after I’d said Kerry’s name. Three graves away, a transparent figure sat on one of the tombstones. I wasn’t sure what I expected to see. I thought ghosts wore sheets, or carried chains. As the form gelled into a human-like mass, I saw a slender female. She wore a skirt, some kind of long blouse thing and a round hat. One leg crossed over the other and she sat like she was on a fine chair, tapping her toe in the air. The outfit reminded me of a picture my grandma showed me once, when she was a flapper. She stared at us and shook her head, as if disbelieving her luck. “Kids. Just kids. Why me?” She pouted at the sky. She hopped down off the tombstone, and proceeded to fluff out her skirt, smoothing it down before adjusting her hat. I could see clear through her and onto the next tombstone and the cemetery gate beyond. It was creepy. Kerry recovered from his statue imitation. His voice trembled. “What do you want?” She shot forward until she was directly in his face. “YOUR SOUL!” She screamed. |
Kerry collapsed, fainted dead away. I’d never seen a person hit the ground so fast. She peered down at him, her hands on her hips. “Oh, for crying out loud! I was only kidding.” She looked toward me. “What’s with your friend anyway? Got a weak heart?”
“No, ma’m. I think, well, I think you scared him.” She fluttered her eyelashes. “Moi? And by the way, don’t call me ma’m. It’s miss. Especially to a young whippersnapper like you.” “Yes, ma’m. uh, miss. What is your name?” “Follow me.” She drifted over to the tombstone where she had been sitting. “Can you read?” I looked at the front of the stone and saw a carving of a cupid and below that an inscription. “May She Always Find Rest” Myrtle Alice Deforest, Born, January 15, 1900, Died, May 5th 1927.” “What a kick? Did you ever hear such a lame inscription in all your life? And Myrtle, for god’s sake. Why did they have to put Myrtle on there?” “What did you want them to write?” My curiosity was overtaking my fear. “I don’t know. Dodo, the Life of the Party. Always the First for Fun. Something to let people know I just wasn’t an old stick in the mud.” She gazed at the city lights twinkling beyond the gates. Kerry moaned. He was slowly coming around. “What do you want with us?” “I want to know why I’m here. Why me? Who wanted me dead?” She must have noted the startled look on my face. “Yes, I know. You’re just kids. My tough luck. But you’ll have to do. I’ve only got this one chance, and that was after years, simply years, of pleading to you-know-who.” |
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